Relationship between Emotional Intelligence and Academic Performance among University Students: A Case of United States International University- Africa

The purpose of this study was to investigate the relationship between emotional intelligence and academic performance among USIU-A students in Nairobi County, Kenya. The study was guided by three specific objectives: to establish the levels of emotional intelligence among USIU-A students; to find out if there are gender differences in emotional intelligence among USIU-A students; and to determine the relationship between emotional intelligence and academic performance among USIU-A students. The study adopted a correlational research design to explore the relationships among the study variables and to reports things as they were. The target population for this study was USIU-A students above 18 years who were in the School of Humanities and Social Sciences and were enrolled for the summer 2021 semester. A sample size of 245 (male n= 108; female n=137) students was recruited using a structured self-administered questionnaire that was constructed on the google forms online survey construction site. Emotional intelligence was measured using the Wong and Law Emotional Intelligence Scale (WLEIS) while academic performance was measured using cumulative grade point average (GPA). Analysis was done for both qualitative and quantitative data. Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) software version 27 was used for descriptive and inferential analysis (Pearson correlation, one-way ANOVA). The results established that 70.2 % (172) of USIU-A students had high levels of emotional intelligence. Low levels of Emotional Intelligence were recorded by 18% (44) of the students, while 11.8% (29) of the students had moderate levels of EI. The mean score in the overall EI was 54.03 + 18.912. Results on gender differences on EI did not yield statistically significant differences between the males (M= 54.05, SD= 18.564) and female students (M= 54.01, SD=17.962) t (243) =-0.014, p=0.989. Nevertheless, males recorded high levels of emotional intelligence compared to females at 70.4% (76) and 70.1% (96) respectively. Low levels of EI were recorded by 18.5% (20) of males compared to 17.5% (24) of females. Moderate levels of EI were exhibited by 12.4% (17) of the females compared to 11.1% (12) of the males. The study found a significant positive relationship between emotional intelligence and academic performance (r = 0.14, p = 0.03). The subscale of self-emotional appraisal (SEA) was found to have a significant relationship with GPA (r = 0127, p =0.046); same for others’ emotional appraisal (OEA) (r = 0.177, p = 0.005); and use of emotion (UOE) (r=0.133, r=0.037). No significant relationship was found between regulation of emotion (ROE) and academic performance of the respondents (r = 0.08, p = 0.24). Additional research is needed to further understand the EI in university students, particularly the factors on gender differences in emotional intelligence.